A Bond Enshrined In Tears

The glint of the sunlight was warm and caressing, as it jounced off the shimmers of dust, dancing around me serenely. I would have been allured by the oddly ethereal display, if I hadn’t been trotting around anxiously, tying to tidy up the grand event I had meticulously planned. It was on a day like today six years ago, on the 8th of May, when I had taken the grand mantle of planning my mother’s birthday.

It was not a grand affair by any means, as we had merely invited some relatives over for dinner and cake. However, as most children do, I was frothing with anticipation to bequeath to my mother the (rather poorly hidden) surprise gift I had made for her. It was a sculpture of two swans, molded in clay; on which I had spent weeks toiling away, shut in my room.

Thus, as the Sun’s warm beams crept lower and lower, until it sunk into a drifting slumber beneath the horizon; my childish excitement could only creep higher. My mother, virtuous as ever, had not taken the day off from work. When she returned from work rather late(some time past 8), she definitely sensed the commotion ringing off our house and thus peeked into he house. Discovering our relatives, she swiftly molded her face with elation and stepped in; feigning surprise.

She quickly exchanged greetings with all and accepted their wishes, after which she cut the cake. The cake was piquant, of course, yet I was wrapped so much in anticipation, that I may not remember the details of it’s refinery(for which I profusely apologise). I positively rushed her to move onto the gifts. Everyone had bought pleasant and expensive gifts, for which she thanked them curtly. Finally, I brought mine over, face flushed and tiny fingers trembling. When she opened the gift wrapping, her face opened into a wide grin as she hugged me with matronly warmth. Yet, the only thing I absorbed was the fact that her smile had never reached her eyes, like the roots of a tree that never quite reached earth. I was that sort of grin I recognized in adults and had begun to detest.

However, the memories of children are quite fickle. Playing with my cousin applied a natural, cooling salve on my bruised temper; now a mere ache. After the dinner, my mother retreated upstairs to their bedroom, as she usually would. It was a rite of passage for me to rush upstairs after her and relay to her, the exciting events that occurred each day. Thus, I laid on the bed and nested my head in her lap. Her fingers wove through my hair and strummed gracefully, as if some Sitar. Her caress was unfathomably tender; it was a cool, healing kiss onto any marring of the soul. I began blabbering about some trivial incident that happened in the morning.

It is funny to think that now, I do not recall what I was even prattling about. All I can remember now is all that I had missed then. How her fingers were trembling somewhat, attempting to keep any misgivings at bay. How her voice was edged and tinted, hiding all the fatigue behind it.

When I was maundering on, I suddenly realized that her fingers were no longer wafting through my hair gently. I looked up to see two pearls, which glimmered silver ethereally (as if some scene from a Renaissance painting), creeping down her face as she attempted to brush them off; cautious to not let these boulders of adult, cynical burden taint the fair skin of the puerile naivete I was wrapped in.

Children, for a long age, envisage their parent as some unmovable Titan; their supporting rocks who could never falter. Thus, many people define the day, they saw the real vulnerability that blemishes their parents, as the day they lost the naivete of youth. Yet, there was a morbid rapture evoked in me when I saw my mother that day. The fact that my mother could err and was human, made her far more diaphanous than the unshakable deity I had painted her as in my mind. Perhaps, vulnerability was not a mere weakness, but an even greater strength which empowered her.

I simply asked her to pour out whatever strained her heart and I would listen. She and I both knew that I would understand naught of what troubled her,(silly workplace drama, as she called it) but the power of a mere listener is stronger than we rate it to be. She cried and shrieked and sighed, but these expressions made me only more aware of the fortitude that molded my mother, the greatest kind of fortitude that most humans may only aspire of possessing someday. It was not strong yet brittle, but rather, tender yet tensile. 

At the end of it, she wrapped me in a embrace that was not tinted in ephemeral joy, but coated in warm, everlasting content. As I drifted to the place of dreams that every child does at night, wrapped in the unwavering braid of my parents' arms; I could only think about the invisible, yet unflinching bond that I had forged with my mother that day. One enshrined in tears.